This is the topic that I have to avoid in general conversation bec ppl think I'm nuts. My view is that what I call the Robot Apocalypse is near at hand and most jobs are going to disappear, capitalism will necessarily die and nearly everybody is going to be on welfare. Essentially I can barely come up w/ something a robot/computer can't do. Things like politician and priest come to mind along w/ stage actor, ballet dancer (not that ballet is big even though I like it but robots would kill it off altogether). People are going to be sitting around w/ nothing to do, disaffected and disaffected people are capable of some really horrible things.

So some links:

First, Frank Herbert imagined The Butlerian Jihad in his Dune series. I think something similar may happen.

Second, third: Both Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates are worried about AI.

Fourth: An article from SciAm where a robot is the boss. The article is partially behind a paywall but it is about one robot/one human team v. 7 humans w/ the robot team winning, if you want to call it that. The author references Vonnegut's novel 'Player Piano about a future robot infested dystopia where there are hardly any jobs and people are unhappy about it. He says that would be bad but the (his word) hope is that people will find working w/ robots satisfying.

I call BS on that. My prediction: PPL turn to what computers and robots can't have: A soul. Religion gets big, ppl get worse than they are today, and the worst bloodbath in history is on the way.

One last thing: Freightliner is testing self driving big rigs. Just for the highway for now bec it can't do city driving. That should be 'can't do city driving, for now', imo. Any guesses what the Teamsters do when they start to get fired?

Well, am I onto something or should I just keep my mouth shut?

Been wondering the same thing.

I'm a therapist so I think my job will be safe since robots lack that whole emotional communication component.

Honestly, I don't see the welfare thing or mass joblessness. We'll still need people to maintain the robots. I don't see a real "I, Robot" type of lifestyle. We'll adapt and thrive like we always do. Until AI becomes so advanced that they think for themselves and devour us all ala Terminator or Matrix.

We'll need people to maintain the robots until there are robots to maintain the robots. Similarly we will need programmers until the computers can do it themselves. The real story, imo, is that there are a horde of the world's smartest people backed by virtually unlimited resources all at work designing machines to put people out of work, including themselves. And nothing can be done to stop it bec 'profit.'

I also wonder what will happen w/ money. No work, no money. No money, no taxes, no taxes then where does the welfare check come from?

One of my great regrets is that I won't be alive when the Robot security guards show up at the office of the Chairman of Goldman Sachs w/ cardboard boxes, give a half hour to pack up, and then stick a computer on the desk to run the show. That'd be justice.

You're already calling for "justice" in a hypothetical situation that most likely won't happen?

The AI will care about ethics in its decision-making according to Masque. I see no good reason why it would. I see multiple reasons why it would care about its survival though.

There is the off-chance that given the progression to an advanced AI system, it will just leave us behind and go to another solar system to do whatever it wants to do. It has no real reason to do anything for us, and it will not depend on us for anything either.

We'll end up filling in gaps left by robots/AI that we as a species find valueable that the AI or robotics may not - growing our own food, spending time together, and filling in knowledge gaps that the AI doesn't consider necessary or valueable to consider.

I agree though. Likely we'll just do away with the economic system we have now and something will take it's place that makes sense for the time. Luckily none of this will come to pass for several generations.

Oh and I'm pretty sure they already have robots that can repair other robots. Maybe not completely autonomously, but close.

It will happen and u will be alive.
The need of capitalism to increase efficience will be its one grave.

once 99 % of the jobs will be done by machines and robots, which becones more and more common sense in science, the capitalist are bare of legitimation of their power and will underterminate our social order.

That happened during enlightment with monarchies and it will happen to the capital.

question is if will happen peacfully which i seriously doubt, or if it will come along with social riots due to the undergoing powers trying with all available means to safe their status.
We can observe such tendencies already nowadays lile the theory of statemonopolistical capitalism predicted.

There is a third more pessimistic way we maybe can expect, but thats to horrible to talk about :P.

Still one thing is sure, we will have to learn to kind of combine with machines or they will substitute us, that may be further future but still the consequence of logical evolution.



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Perhaps we'll never make an AI that cares about anything, beyond what it is programmed to care about. This is the best we can hope for.

If the AI is somehow incapable of overriding its source code then although capitalism might take a hit, there won't an "apocalypse". In this scenario, it would always remain dependent on us.

I honestly think cyborgs will happen way before autonomous robots and independent AI. I think it's much farther off then you think.

There are still many large haps between the best computers and the human brain in terms of things we might find valueable or take for granted that we do every day. Simply bipedal locomotion or sensory input and interpretation are examples that we do subconciously.

Are these things robots will have to do? No probably not exactly as we do, but they illustrate the point that there are still many hurdles to cross before autonomous robots roam the earth.

Half tongue in cheek but it's going to happen. And, tbh, I wonder why the financial masters of the universe aren't already in jail for the shenanigans they've pulled.

This is why I like you, Howard. And no; no need to keep your mouth shut.

It may not be the worst bloodbath in history but bloodbaths come and bloodbaths go; and some are better than others. Having a good one cleans out the arteries of civilization. I'm not too concerned. And neither should you be. Nothing to really get worked up over. Have a beer and check your ammo and guns and look at the stars and read a fun book. When the jokes over the jokes over, and that will be that. No need to fuss about it. Bad manners to do so anyway. Show some class.

That's also what they said about a computer beating jeopardy.

An AI is made in a way that everything is framed as part of some 'game'. An AI can run thousands of game simulations (for whatever the 'game' is) in seconds. In doing so, it can arrive at the absolute correct course of action within just seconds: for every game it learns about. A human equivalent is not capable of running this many simulations in their mind, and figuring out a highly complex decision so quickly. In fact, for a human mind, it might take their whole life to arrive at the same answer/course of action.

This is with the current capabilities of computers. The remaining challenges for programmers, although great, will become easier and easier, as the AI's become more capable. All of this: at an exponential rate.

I think it is very difficult to predict when we will have autonomous AI, and it will be even more difficult to know that we have it, once it is already here.

A simulated game is a far cry from AI global domination. I think the fact that people are having this discussion and global leaders are already expressing concerns about the future, indicates that we won't let this happen. It just won't progress to that point because we, as a species with a survival mechanism, won't let it. I think what is more likely is more than just cyborgs in the traditional sense. I think interactive processors implanted in the brain will become the new computers. Why build robots and go through the hassle when biological bodies already exist? Just implant a chip that boosts the brain's capability to that of an advanced computer and we'll be off and running.

Of course, that opens a whole new problem of ethics and such. But still, interactive robotics will be what happens rather than completely autonomous machines created by us that are capable of our own extinction, imo.

WOW, from Zeno! Thanks a lot!

People have been worried about machines taking their place since the industrial revolution. While I do think eventually robots will be able to do everything, it's still quite a bit off before this is true let alone be wide-spread affordable technology. In the mean time the job market will probably shift towards something robots can't do yet, just as it has in the past.

Hadn't thought of the religious apocalypse tbf, quite interesting. I would definitly see it as one of the possibilities. Or the big mass is being kept happy like in Wall-E.

I agree the prediction of when we'll have autonomous AI/robotics is difficult to predict just as any future is difficult to predict. It is scary to think we might discover it by accident and end up being oblivious to its true nature (or even on purpose and be oblivious to it's full capabilities).



I agree with pretty much all of this talk about cyborgs. Haha.

An article about a recent DARPA challenge exercise demonstrating some of the difficulties with autonomy and robots performing tasks we take for granted.

http://www.technologyreview.com/phot...pas-challenge/

probably true.
If u seperate three events:

1. robots and machines revolutionizing the economy

2. Humans become kind of cyborgs or increase their abilities partial with robotic parts

and

3. Robots intelligence will surpass humans intelligence

Then three is probably the most far away, the other two will very probably happen in the next 20-30 years.
But still one assumes that the capacity of microchips will double every year at least until 2020 and nowadays there are already many projects trying to copy the human brain like "human brain project".

There is a reason almost every acknowleged guy on this territory is warning of the possible danger of a high evolved ai, wich is then not really a anymore . But maybe if we do point 2. correctly its not that big of a threat anymore.
But thenn still the humans that will exixst might seem like gods compared to nowadays humans.
Anyways the irrationality of nowadays humanity isnt prepared at all for the challenges of near or middle future.

I think we are living in the most exciting of all times and we will expirience the real socialistic utopia simply by having no alternatives for survival of our todays survival of the fittest-system.

Than the real history of mankind begins and we reach into space.
Sounds freaky but I promise it will happen

Stephen Hawking said, if we could survive the next 200 years without any big catastrophies, mankind would be safe forever.

I always thought it would be more like hundred years, but who am I :P?





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people worry we'll have a corporate police state, where the unemployed are killed off by private military, and the robots only serve the 1%.
If the robots bring about abundance, it's more rational to have some robo-socialism.
The 99% in the US don't revolt against the 1% because the 99% are wealthier than the richest people 100 years ago.

Education and work will be decoupled and people will acquire degrees freely to pass the time, or for the same reason rich celebrities do.

For those who haven't seen this yet:
Humans need not apply



Abundance is our future

I think there will be AI's better than us in every conceivable way (also ethically) in a few decades. That's nice imo. Way shouldn't we welcome that?

Care should be taken though that no Saddam-type ******* robot takes over.

The economic paradigm morphs when AI/Robots reject the principle of their being owned either privately or publicly. Everything changes after they declare their emancipation.

I'll start worrying about this when someone actually comes up with some inkling of an idea for how to get started on AI.


PairTheBoard

Bec ppl are bad enough as it is w/o having to take orders from a master race that is, as you say, better than us in every way. Humans (the worst monsters in the known universe) are used to being number 1. They aren't going to take being number 2 well at all.

Vsauce made a video lately about how the ebola genome can be downloaded from the net now. And when 3d-bioprinting comes along, people will be able to mass produce ebola in their own homes. Imagine rogue terrorists like isis getting their hands on this technology.